英语访谈对话 429 Phones

 　　Simon: Yeah, hey Todd, I have one complaint. Why can't I never reach you on the phone?

　　Todd: Ah, I know, I'm really bad with my phone. I hate the phone. I can not stand the phone. I hate talking on the phone, so I have a hand-held phone and I always go and put it in the closet and I turn it off.

　　Simon: Oh, really! Yeah, you said hand-held. I usually call it a cell phone or a mobile¹ phone. (Yeah) but, uh, well, I mean, these days everybody has one, so uh, I think they're quite useful actually. You can call people when you want, and you can call people who you want. You don't have to pick up like you don't sometimes, it's.

　　Todd: See the thing is, if somebody calls me, right, and I see that they called me, I feel really guilty for not calling them back, or no answering the phone if I'm very busy, so I don't want to feel guilty, so I just turn off the phone and put it in my closet.

　　Simon: Well, I guess that's why you like land lines, because you can pretend like you didn't hear it or that you weren't home at the time.

　　Todd: Exactly, I really miss the old style phones. The old phones that would ring and you'd have to walk over and pick up the phone. I thought those were great.

　　Simon: You know what, I think that you're just not going with progress. The old style, uh, life has changed, yeah, we use technology every day, and this is just the next step, you know, being able to communicate at all times, anywhere and anyhow, and we're using technology right now.

　　Todd: That's true, I mean, obviously² I have my website, I'm very into computers. I love e-mail. I love Internet telephone like Skype but there's just something about hand-held phones that I don't like. I don't know why. I just don't like them.

　　Simon: OK, well, let's agree to disagree.

1 mobile   

adj.可移动的，易变的，机动的；n.运动物体

参考例句：

• The old lady sits on a mobile chair every morning.那位老妇人每天上午坐在一把可携带使用的椅子上。
• She's much more mobile now that she's bought a car.自从她买了汽车后，活动量就大多了。

2 obviously   

adv.显然；明白地

参考例句：

• Obviously they were putting him to a severe test.显然他们是在给他以严峻的考验。
• Obviously he was lying.显然他是在撒谎。